[Russia] Moscow, a break in the biggest capital city in Europe

When we decided to visit Russia, we had to make some choices especially due to visa length (30 days)… Moscow was one of them.

Indeed, when we hear about Moscow and when we try to think about a city with 18 million people (non official data), more than 1000 km2 and such history… we could guess that a bit of time was needed to see Moscow, understand and enjoy it.

At this time, we preferred to focus on our Siberian experience (you will know why soon 🙂 ), we decided to stay only 2 days in the biggest city in Europe. It was obviously not enough but it is still a nice stop to get an overview of the capital city of the ex soviet empire.

Do you want a resumé of our short Moscow experience?

Irina, our first Courchsurfind host : Great !

In general, MOW is a project to meet other cultures, other histories and traditions and exchange them… that is the reason why we have a particular interest in Couchsurfing experience. Meeting people for a walk, a coffee or a dinner, there is nothing better for sharing.

In Russia, Couchsurfing is very popular (in Moscow, Irina told us that more than 100 000 people are ready to host) and we got a lot of offers… We decided to stay in Irina’s place, a 30 year old woman from Moscow.

We have been very well welcomed, in a really nice flat; kind of soviet style a little bit outside of the city center (20 min by metro). It gave us the opportunity to have a different vision of Moscow.

With Irina, we had the chance to spend a couple of hours talking about the history of Moscow, about Russia in general and more globally the place of Moscow in Russia. Irina is passionate about travel too. She was just coming back from Armenia… We now know more about the habits and trends about travel in Russia today. Very interesting!

Finally, it was a really great experience. Thank you Irina! We cannot wait to have such other experience in different cities.

The Red Square

In the past it was the place for the market, coronations of the russian Tsars and today a representative place close to the Kremlin (Russian President office). The name is very often related to the color of communism and it is wrong. In old Slavonic language ‘krasny’ means beautiful, it was related to the Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed, which is simply beautiful. In Russian this same word means red. That is how it became Red Square. In 1991 it was the first place in Russia pointed in the UNESCO list. Next to many interesting and historical places you will find here the mausoleum of Lenin.

Metro in Moscow, a wonderful network and a part of history

The city is so big that the development of public transportation was crucial. Even if the car is still highly used in Moscow (Russians especially love huge and big cars… 🙁 ), there is a huge network of Metro lines (14 to be precised) with 2 kind of ring which allow people to move easily to each point of the city.

Metro in Moscow is 80 years old and the different stations are globally very decorated… We found it very beautiful and interesting. For the metro which counts so many users, they maybe have the feeling to walk through art pieces.

Not too brave facing low temperatures, we spent a nice moment going from station to station looking at the details, the aesthetic and the topics of different draws/paints. Here under some pictures of our discovery.

ZiferBlat, anti café

Maybe some of you heard about it… In Moscow has been launched 5 years ago the concept of Anti Café. What is it?

It is a place for relaxing, for working (coworking?), for thinking (large library at disposal), for artists especially musicians (piano, guitar freely accessible)… where you can have unlimited coffee, tea and snacks. But if you want, you can even bring your own food.

To enjoy the place, it is easy: you pay the time you spend in the café. Here in Moscow, it is 3 RUB per minute for the first hour (180 RUB per hour so 3€). Then it is cheaper and anyway, you cannot pay more than 540 RUB per day (9€). Once you are in, you have unlimited hot drinks and snacks.

But more than the price attractivity… for us, fan of coffee and cafés, we just found out the place amazing… very positive for creation, inspiration… and for finishing our webpage J

Have a look to the picture. It is very inspiring and you still have not experienced it 😉

What else ? we have been really surprised by the size of this city… it is really impressive. The historic buildings are huge, the avenues too. Moscow has a lot of museums that are definitely worth to visit to know more about the biggest country in the world. For us, it will be for the next time…